


Dead Hearts are Everywhere

by arachnistar



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - War, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-20 02:50:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War AU, He is the Oncoming Storm. She is the Bad Wolf. They meet on the battleground and they dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Hearts are Everywhere

He doesn’t want to be a soldier. He prefers healing and fixing to fighting and destroying. It’s why the camp calls him the Doctor. He serves as their medic and he’s brilliant at it. So long as you’re found alive, the Doctor will be able to patch you up. They call him a miracle worker, but he scoffs at that. It’s just science. No miracles whatsoever.

Sometimes, however, he needs to fight. Their army is short on warriors and he’s just as good at killing as he is at healing. Maybe even better, they whisper but not around him. They know how he feels about it.

On the battleground, he’s not the Doctor. He’s the Oncoming Storm and his enemies tremble. He roars through like a hurricane, a force of nature with his sword, an Achilles of the present day, and leaves devastation in his wake. And then when it’s all over, he runs back to his tent and waits for the patients to roll in. He never looks back at the dead.

Today’s skirmish is nearly over and most have retreated by now. It’s a stalemate, too many dead on both sides to count as a victory for either. He is about to leave and ready his medical supplies when he spots her surrounded by red.

The famed Bad Wolf with her fierce wolf helmet and a bite far worse than her bark. They say she’s like a goddess, a whirlwind of fury on the battlefield, wielding life and death like they are her playthings. They say she might be better than him though the claim is untested so far. She has brought down so many of his comrades, friends, before this and he hers.

It shall be a fight to the death.

Their swords clang and clash and clatter against one another in a deadly dance. Sparks fly. There are parries and ripostes and counters as they weave and shuffle and duck. They’re evenly matched until he feints, whirls by her sword in a graceful spin, and slides his sword through her chainmail into soft flesh. For a moment, time freezes around them, the victor and the victim, the Oncoming Storm and the Bad Wolf. Then he wrenches his sword free and watches her crumble.

So much for the goddess bit, he thinks rather smugly though he is also melancholy. Taking lives is nothing to celebrate even if she is their best.

Usually he would depart now, but he is still fascinated by her. The mystery of the Bad Wolf. No one knows her real name, at least on their side. Underneath her mask, who is she? Or was, he supposes. He’ll never learn about the person, but a face. He wants to see the face of this goddess of death.

And, he thinks, he cannot allow his fellow soldiers to brutalize her body as they do to all their worst enemies. She’s too worthy an opponent for that kind of disrespect. No, he’ll simply take her helmet, an honor, and then she’ll be just another body on the field. To be reclaimed by her fellow soldiers or to be picked off by the crows. Just another body, another life cut short by this war.

He kneels and lifts the helmet up, revealing blonde tresses. He nearly drops it when he sees her face. “No." He whispers. Can’t be, no way, this is just an illusion, a bad dream, a nightmare. It can’t be real.

She is still alive and she hears him. Her eyes open and stare at him, through the slit in his helmet, into his brown eyes, into him. "…Doctor?" It is hesitant and uncertain; she has never known the Oncoming Storm until today, but she has known the Doctor for years.

His heart jumps. She’s still alive. He can still save her. If he works fast enough… He’s never lost a single patient and he’s not about to start with her. “Shh, Rose. It’s going to be okay." He places her helmet on the ground and pulls his off to set beside hers.

She smiles at him, that tongue-touched smile that used to drive him crazy. Still does, he’d admit, but he’s a little too concerned to focus on it right now. “‘S nice to see you again. But don’t you dare lie to me."

“‘M not lying. You’re going to be okay. All my patients live. Ask any of them, all alive an’ well an’ happy."

He cuts through the straps of her armor and then through her chainmail. There’s so much red, so much life leaking out of her precious body. But he can save her. He has to. He rips cloth from her under-tunic and presses it against the wound. It soaks through far too fast. He tears more fabric and pushes harder.

Her eyelids are drooping shut. He taps at her nose. “Hey, stay with me, Rose. You can do that, yeah? Just stay with me and I’ll do the rest." He wishes he had his medical bag with him, but it’s back in the camp. He’ll have to carry her back there or maybe… He looks around, notices that Jack is close, looking through bodies for treasure or survivors.

"Jack!" The man looks up, startled.

"Never thought I’d see you hangin’ around after a battle, Doctor." Jack squints from where he stands, trying to make out who it is that the Doctor is kneeling by. He hides her helmet, hopes that Jack doesn’t ask.

"Get my medical bag." Before Jack can form a question, he pulls his darkest voice, the one he uses when he’s saving lives and has zero patience for dalliance, and yells, “Now!" Jack nods and hurries off.

“‘S not gonna work, Doctor."

He looks back at her, at her paling face. “Don’t say that. I’m the Doctor and I’m not going to let you die. You got that?"

She stays quiet. He presses the cloth against her wound, doing his best to stave the blood flow until Jack returns. “Just stay awake. Do it for me, yeah? Just listen to me. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be okay. We can leave and be together. Live in the wilderness if we have to until all the fighting stops. You and me, just as it should be."

There is a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head. “I’m sorry, Doctor."

"Shh, there’s nothing for you to be sorry for." Her blood’s leaving too fast, there’s too much of it, and if he peers closer, doesn’t delude himself, he knows it’s too late. But he refuses to think it. Everyone believes he can work miracles; he’ll prove them right. This will be his finest one.

"I promised you I wouldn’t fight. But I did."

"I promised too." He reminds her.

Those promises seem so long ago now. Back when the days were full of sunshine and birds and joy, the naïve knowledge that there was something special and eternal there. When they would run through the fields and cities, adventure at every step, love in every kiss, laughter in every breath. Before the war had closed them off, before they had been separated by blood and bodies.

"I didn’t want to. But we were losing and Mickey was goin’ an’ I had to. Or they woulda gotten my mum an’ I couldn’t let her die."

"Shh, Rose. ‘S not your fault."

He glances down at her face and is alarmed to see her eyes have closed. “Rose!" They startle open and then blink blearily at him. “Stay with me! Keep that promise!"

"Didn’t promise anythin’." A teasing smirk crosses her face, but it doesn’t hide the fear in her eyes. She coughs then, blood coming up.

"Then promise me now. Promise you won’t leave. You can’t leave. Promise me."

"I love you."

His chest tightens. Somewhere, he can hear feet approaching and someone calling his name, but he ignores it. His eyes stay locked on her, his whole world coalescing into this single moment, into those three words. Last time she said it, he hadn’t returned it. He loved her, of course he did, then and now and always, but the words got stuck in the web of his throat and instead he told her “quite right too". Because he was a coward, always running away from words and truth. Now he refuses to run, is determined to heal her because he will not be her killer and love her because he knows nothing else.

"I love you, Rose. I love you. Just stay with me. Jack’s here and I have what I need. You just need to keep your eyes open. Do that for me, dammit Rose, please."

Her eyes shut and his heart withers and dies.


End file.
